Fred Wilson was the
only music store owner in New York City's Hell's Kitchen. While his
business was not as spectacular as if his shop was in another part of
the city, it was more than enough to keep him in business. The
legendary jazz violinist Joe Venuti once stopped by his store to
search for new strings, but aside from that, his business was
unremarkable. He did offer some private lessons in music, primarily
of the classical sort. His favorite pieces, which he instructed to
most, were the French composer Pierre Rode and his German student
Joseph Bohm. He was a hard to satisfy instructor, but a respected and
effective one. While a younger man, he was not as passionate about
jazz as his peers.

There was one thing
that set him apart from all the other stores down the street. He
refused to pay the protection money demanded by some local mobsters.
The police didn't like venturing in to this part of town often, so
any defense or resistance was on his own. He had purchased a revolver
to scare them of, and they had not bothered him for a few months. He
thought he had scared them off.

One cold winter day,
however, he discovered he was wrong. It was a cloudy, overcast day
with a biting wind blowing outside his door. He had left to get a
newspaper from the paper boy on the street, and had to hold his hat
down to cover his short brown hair. The tall, lanky music store owner
leaned into the wind, his brown overcoat being the only thing
shielding him from the frigid wind.

He was just outside his
store when a large black car pulled up. Two large men with fedora
hats and trench coats stepped out of the car, heading towards him.
Wilson turned to run, but the two men grabbed the back of his hands.
They violently forced him into the rear of the car, stepping in
behind him. One began to tie rope around his hands, and the other
drove away.

Inside of the car, he
saw rich upholstery on the seats. A man whose face he could not see
drove the car. Next to him sat one of the giant thugs, who now kept a
pistol on him. Another thug he had not seen before sat in the back,
holding a revolver to him. A face in the passenger's side of the car
locked into the back seat. It was a middle aged Italian man with
sharp features and a large grin. He looked like a cat who had just
caught a mouse, and was about to devour it after toying with it.
Wilson knew the face from wanted posters and rumors on the street:
Old Rocco of the West-End Gang. He didn't last this long in organized
crime by being merciful. While Hell's Kitchen was dominated by the
Irish, the Italian mobster had been extending his reach into Hell's
Kitchen gradually.

Fred Wilson said
nothing. What he said or did would have to be careful, or else he
would get killed. "I'll pay," he said, trying to keep calm.

"That's nice to
here," Old Rocco grinned. "But you ain't getting off so easy,
chump."

Wilson cringed. The
last thing he wanted to do was end up at the bottom of the Hudson.

"I'm gonna give you a
reason why you shouldn't have blown off my boys like that," the
mobster reached for something in the front seat.

"No, please!"
Wilson raised his bound hands in front of his face, hoping in vain
that would shield him from whatever horrid fate Old Rocco had in mind
for him. Something told him that Rocco wasn't just content smashing
up or burning his store. Rocco pulled out a violin case. Wilson
expected to see a Tommy gun come out at any moment.

"Relax, chump," he
replied. "You ain't gonna be sleepin' with the fishes or get
ventilated. At least not today."

He opened the violin
case, pulling out a violin. It wasn't like the finely tuned and
quality instruments that he was used to dealing with. Instead, it was
an old, ill maintained one. The wood was splintering and rotten. The
strings were frayed and looked about ready to snap. It was as if the
instrument had been found floating around in the sewer after years.

"Now, I ain't exactly
a man of class," Rocco explained. "But I ain't just a thug,
either. My old man showed me some violin back in the day. I learned
some Pierre Rode, and that kraut Joseph Bohm. Hell, I even catch a
jazz show with Joe Venuti in it now and then."

Wilson remained quiet,
unsure of how to react.

"Point is, I know my
music, and I know you do, too," Rocco added. "Now, I could just
bash up your shop, or break your legs, but I prefer to have a more
unique touch."

He snapped his fingers,
and the thug with the revolver took the violin from Rocco. "But
Luigi here ain't never learned to play," Rocco grinned. "He's
gonna try to play some Rode, and you're gonna listen to it."

He lifted the violin to
his chin, and held it in an improper way. He held the weathered bow
at an improper angle to the strings, and began to play. The sounds
that came out were what he'd expect from such a violin. Horrid, out
of tune notes and strings that sounded worse like nails on glass. The
out of tune instrument was like a torture device to the trained ears
of the music instructor. The instrument sounded like the dying sounds
of a cat in a meat grinder. Despite his best efforts, he could not
tune it out. Years of training in music meant he was focused on it.

The car continued
driving, as the music continued coming. Rocco was on the verge of
laughter the whole time. If this was a student, Wilson knew he'd be
correcting countless things about the condition of the instrument and
lack of skill of the violinist. It was like trying to listen to a
gorilla playing with broken instruments from the garbage. The
agonizing cacophany made him wince and keep his eyes closed. His
bound hands prevented him from covering his ears.

There was missed notes,
horrid sounds, and one of his favorite composers defiled from beyond
the grave. Necrophilia would be less of a travesty to the late Pierre
Rode than this. A mentally ill monkey would have more musical skills
than the mobster holding the violin. Wilson was starting to regret
them not shooting him. As the trip wore on, Wilson regretted the fact
they didn't just shoot him to begin with. After what seemed like an
eternity of torture, he screamed.

"Okay, he's had
enough," Rocco grinned sadistically. "Remember, chump, if you
don't start paying, next time I'll bring my own orchestra. Then it'll
be a real symphony of pain. Boys, toss him out here."

The car pulled to a
stop, and the thugs threw him out of the car. Wilson stood up, his
hands still chafing from the ropes, and saw the car speed off. Old
Rocco was truly devious. He began paying the day afterwards, but his
ears felt unclean for the rest of the week. He would have nightmares
for life.

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